MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'm finally taking a break from the craziness to spend some nice time w/ my family for the holidays. No website, no selling, etc... just chillin' out w/ the kids & hubby. Nice.

We were supposed to go to Colorado for Christmas, that's where my family is & we haven't been there for Christmas day since 1993 or so. My kids have never had a Colorado Christmas, sad. :o( We had been planning on this since probably the spring, we didn't go home for the summer, which we would normally do, since we knew we were going for Christmas instead. The first week of December we had to choose between a new computer, new tires for my car & a new dryer or Christmas in Colorado. What a sucky choice, huh?

It worked out okay, as sad as it was to not be home, I was so super crazy busy up til the day we were supposed to leave, no downtime whatsoever, so I can't imagine having to add the stress of packing & getting ready to go on top of all of that. Not fun. PLUS, major snow & ice storms between here & there, the drive would've sucked. :o) We'll head out there for Spring Break because the summer has already gotten busy w/ trips & such & Colorado isn't on that list.

Hope you had a nice & relaxing Christmas... or whatever you might celebrate... & a fabulous, but safe, New Year!

IN THE MEADOW WE CAN BUILD A SNOWMAN...

So... when my 12 year old was in kindergarten, I couldn't simply purchase some plain cupcakes for his class birthday celebration, NOOOOOOOOoooo... I had to TOP them with something "above average". So, since he has a January birthday, the WINTER theme was a little obvious. As I was scowering the cake decorating store for inspiration, I came across a package of small bowling pins that were made to top a cake. I remember seeing a cute snowman SOMEWHERE made from a paper mache' bowling pin & thought that these little pins would be PERFECT to make into snowmen for these cupcakes. I made something like 25 of these, drew eyes & dotted "coal" mouths, & little painted orange noses! I decked them all out in pipe cleaner scarves & hats or ear muffs & put toothpicks into their little bottom holes :o) to stick into the cupcake. ... they were FABULOUS!! :o) Fun. (excuse the old pictures!)



The next year I decided to do it again but make them something that could stand up on their own, but I couldn't find the plastic pins, so I made them out of polymer clay & glued them to clear glass pebbles. So cute.

I've made them many times since then. Last year I was party mom for my younger child's 3rd grade class & when I was hunting for a craft for them to do @ their "Winter (Christmas) Party", I found this little snowglobe ornament in Family Fun magazine that had a little plastic deer standing in a snow-covered forest. The "dome" was a clear Solo cup. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen.

Well... w/ lots of searching, I found that these cute little plastic deer were about $1/each. There was no way I could spend THAT much out of the party funds for a small part of a craft, so I decided that for only about $5, I could make a few dozen snowmen out of clay for these ornaments, they'd be perfect... & they WERE!! I prepared most of everything up front for these, the kids just glued them together.

Here's my youngest w/ his ornament & then the prototype that I made w/ my niece.

...SO... (yes, there's more, LOL!) once I started lampworking, I KNEW I was going to have to try to make some snowmen out of glass!

This is my first glass snowman (girl)... she cracked. :o(




















Here is one grouping of some coordinating ones:











Then, of course, I had to "rethink" the snow dome. I couldn't very well put a plastic cup over the top of some cute glass snowmen, could I?? Noooooooo. :o) So, I hunted down some small glass domes (used by pocketwatch collectors) & made the footed wooden bases & there you go, my own original design, 8 years in the making...